User talk:Sylvar

Welcome!

Hello, Sylvar, and welcome to the ISFDB Wiki! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are some pages that you might find helpful:

• Help pages
• Field-by-field guide to entering new publications into the database
• Help:Getting Started
• What the ISFDB Wiki is for
• FAQ
• Wiki editing help - Tips on how to use the wiki-specific features when editing wiki pages.
• Wiki Conventions - How things are usually done on this wiki.
• Help:How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki

Note: Image uploading isn't entirely automated. You're uploading the files to the wiki which will then have to be linked to the database by editing the publication record.

Please be careful in editing publications that have been primary verified by other editors. See Help:How to verify data#Making changes to verified pubs. But if you have a copy of an unverified publication, verifying it can be quite helpful. See Help:How to verify data for detailed information.

I hope you enjoy editing here! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will insert your name and the date. If you need help, check out the community portal, or ask me on my talk page. Again, welcome!--Dirk P Broer 17:53, 23 February 2021 (EST)

Thanks! Sylvar 10:31, 24 February 2021 (EST)

Old Mars

Hello. I've approved your submission. Checked Amazon, and you are right, it is a paperback (tp, because its size is larger than 4.25 by 7 inches). To import titles, there's a menu item on the left that lets you do exactly that (once the publication record you want to import into exists, of course, so it's a two-step edit). However, a much easier approach would be to just clone the already existing publication. If you do it that way, all contents is already there in your new copy, including page numbers :).
Also, while you transiently verified against the archive org copy, I personally tend to not do that myself. Instead, I am adding notes to clarify the data is coming from an Archive.org copy - have a look: Old Mars. If you intend to contribute more, please do read through the help text provided in the welcome message above. It really helps getting you up to speed. For any questions, head over to the help desk or community portal. Again, Welcome! Regards, MagicUnk 13:21, 10 September 2021 (EDT)

Oh, and since this is the second printing of the 2015 edition, we don't know its exact publication date. Hence, we enter 0000-00-00 as date. MagicUnk 13:37, 10 September 2021 (EDT)

Ah, good catch! Thank you very much. Sylvar 15:09, 10 September 2021 (EDT)

Prime Directive

I added an image URL to Your primary verified publication. --Zapp 01:20, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Practical Computing

While the primary focus of this magazine was home computers, the editors routinely included one science-fiction short story per issue, usually from authors who don't appear in ISFDB yet. Internet Archive has 25 issues online and I intend to enter them as time permits, but I'm waiting for feedback on my first such submission. Sylvar 12:36, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Here it is. The only change it required was to make the magazine non-genre and to add a series to it so it can create the grid :) I also set the Yearly title (ignore this for now - it is always a second step). I also moved the link to the Wiki article to the newly created series (it was on the title record). Thanks for adding it and yes, we want these - that's exactly what the non-genre flag was added for. :) Annie 15:43, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Feb 1984. No need to add the link to the wiki for the magazine on the title level - it belongs to the series, NOT the title and it is already there. Adding the series name will be more useful. :) And let's pick one form for the publisher - the naked one "Electrical Electronic Press" for example. I merged the two forms into it :) Annie 16:47, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

Thank you! Would the series name be Practical Computing, or Practical Computing - yyyy? Sylvar 17:21, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

And should I be adding the editor of each issue as something other than the Author, or is that the right place to put it? I see that it shows up in the Regular Titles section of the edit menu... Sylvar 17:30, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

"Practical Computing" for the series name. The -yyyy thing is a title rename after approval for the title record - so we do not clutter editors pages if they edit a lot of issues in the same year.

The EDITOR is the title record of the Magazine publication and created automatically when you add a magazine. Adding a publication always creates two records: a publication and a title record. For most types they have the same name (novel, collection, anthology and so on). For fanzines and magazines, the title record is called EDITOR. Once created, an EDITOR is renamed and re-dated as a second step for the yearly record basically. Some moderators may do that for you, if not you can submit the edit on your own. You do not need to worry about this while creating the magazine. :) Annie 19:20, 29 September 2021 (EDT)

There are about 100 issues archived at worldradiohistory.com; should I link directly to those for the Publication Web Page or should I link to the Wayback Machine's copy? Sylvar 16:50, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

Or both :) Annie 19:32, 30 September 2021 (EDT)

Okay, this beggars my bibliographic mind: in one issue, the 'fiction' was a BASIC program implementing Gahan Wilson's 'The Science Fiction Horror Movie Pocket Computer', but misattributing the flowchart to Sam Lundwell (sic) in An Illustrated History of Science Fiction (sic), which would at least have been LESS incorrect had it been misattributed to Sam J. Lundwall in Science Fiction: An Illustrated History. So: if Gahan Wilson's flowchart with humorous commentary really is a short story, what the heck is the spaghetti-code version of it? Sylvar 11:35, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

I'd add it as a story and add a note explaining what it is exactly and connecting via the notes to the actual story :) Annie 16:49, 1 October 2021 (EDT)

Hexadecimal Kid

Richard Sandes Forsyth wrote three Tron-like stories starring the Hexadecimal Kid that appeared as serials (1978–1981) in Computer Weekly and Practical Computing originally, and one of them was also reprinted as a serial in Computerworld. The exact page numbers appear to have been lost to time; the author has provided me via email with the dates in which each chapter appeared. For example, "ASCII Through the Logic Gate" appeared in 33 parts ("Block 0" through "Block 32") in Computer Weekly beginning on 1978-05-25 and continuing each week until 1979-01-04. (All the data I have is here, if you want to see what I'm working with.)

Is it acceptable to add these non-genre magazines and list the parts as SERIALs without page numbers, and list the data source as "Data provided in email by author"? I haven't knowingly entered anything without a page number before, so I'm not sure that's okay.

Does the part's title need to have appeared in print to be listed as such? For example, could I list it as "Son of Hexadecimal Kid, Page 13: Page Boundary" even though the part title doesn't appear in print but does appear on the author's site?

Should I retain the author's whimsical jargon-naming of the parts (Bit 0–16, Block 0–32, Page 0–16) or should I list Page 13 instead as "Son of Hexadecimal Kid, Part 13: Page Boundary"?

Adding without page numbers is absolutely fine. Let me look at the rest of the questions in a few hours when I am back on a bigger screen. Annie 19:23, 2 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks! Sylvar 10:29, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Copying these questions to the help desk. Sylvar 10:40, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Merging “Time and Again, and Overtime” by Doodles Weaver

I’ve tried every way I can to tell the merge interface that I want to keep the earlier publication date, but it keeps saying “okay I’ll drop the earlier publication date”. Am I doing something wrong or is it just preferring the lower record ID? Will we be losing data if this merge gets approved?

I've done the merging for you :-). But if you've selected the correct (earlier) date, all things should be handled automatically to keep that date (and even if it didn't, there's always the opportunity to re-enter that date in another step of editing. Stonecreek 10:26, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Phew! Thanks. Sylvar 10:29, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Another note (or two): Please, use the help desk for problems like that (or questions). If you post here on your talk page, things might get overlooked. And don't forget to sign your posts with four tildes (Stonecreek 10:31, 4 October 2021 (EDT)); this will insert your name and the date. Stonecreek 10:31, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Thanks for the tips! Sylvar 10:42, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

I've had the same problem, and brought it up on the message boards a couple of times, but no one seemed able to say for sure what was wrong. Only way to tell what's really kept is waiting until it's approved and then looking at it. --Username 10:36, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

What OS and browser you are using? And can you try with all kinds of Add-ons disabled and/or removed - maybe one of them is interfering (had seen worse things happen). It always shows as a radio-box for me, regardless of which of my devices I use and the developer can never reproduce either. So there is a difference somewhere - which needs tracking. Being a webpage, the browser is the always the first suspect.Annie 13:15, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Windows 10, Chrome 94.0.4606.71. Next time I have this problem I'll try with all add-ons, etc. disabled! Sylvar 13:35, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Or try to see if Firefox won't behave better. One of my machines is Windows 10 - I had never see it happen on either Chrome or Firefox (Although admittedly I stay on Firefox most of the time). If we can figure out where it is happening, it may be solvable. Annie 13:50, 4 October 2021 (EDT)

Computer Weekly, January 19, 1978

We have a special format for non-genre magazine editors - instead of unknown as you would use on a genre pub or on a book, we use "Editors of periodical name" instead. :) See how I fixed it here. Annie 16:34, 7 October 2021 (EDT)

Well heck! I've got dozens of accepted submissions to go back and fix now, starting with this one. I hope that doesn't keep the pending Computerworld submissions from being accepted; I'd hate to have to re-enter all of that data from scratch! Sylvar 16:59, 7 October 2021 (EDT)

Nope. If we know the editor, it is acceptable to use their name (as of a few months ago). We just do not use "unknown" for this specific case. And no - noone will kick a valid submission for a name issue - we approve and fix. Annie 17:10, 7 October 2021 (EDT)

Ah, I see. If I ever find any version of this particular newspaper issue, I'll update it; it's only unknown at the moment. Thanks! Sylvar 17:58, 7 October 2021 (EDT)

Until 3-4 months ago, the Editors format was mandatory for non-genre magazines and you would have been told so on your first entry. :) Now it is down to the editor adding the magazine - I personally prefer to use the Editors syntax even when I know the editor if they are not present in the DB outside of this magazine - we are a genre DB, adding editors of computer magazines is not really what we do here - we want their stories though. But as I said - either works so... up to you what you want to use while adding these magazines. :) Annie 18:08, 7 October 2021 (EDT)

Ah, good tip, thanks -- that saves my attention for more important bibliographic data. Sylvar 18:20, 7 October 2021 (EDT)

Author names

You may want to familiarize yourself with this page and especially the "Ranks, suffixes, prefixes" part. E. Drake Lundell Jr. will always be recorded as "E. Drake Lundell, Jr." - note the comma and the dot - regardless of how the magazine/book puts the commas and the dots :) Annie 13:41, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Ooo, that's a good point, thank you!

At the risk of turning 99 problems into 100 problems with regular expressions, do you think this is something that could be turned into a submission warning when the input contains (?<!, )(Jr|Sr) or (Jr|Sr)(?!\.)$, or whatever syntax the validator would use? Or is it better to show volunteers more patience than they merit when telling them "don't do that, then"? Sylvar 15:44, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Well... we are an international DB and this rule does not really apply outside of English technically. So... it is a bit more complicated than just an easy warning. Plus Jr or JR can be a name and not a suffix. So can it be done? Sure - but... :) Annie 15:56, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Hmm, good point, I'm so used to working on the Historical Dictionary of Science Fiction (which is how I found out about ISFDB), in which even an English translation of Последният ден на ХХ век would be useless, because they only focus on works written in English originally. OK, better to train the user. Thank you for doing that. Sylvar 16:04, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Different projects have different policies. :) If it is speculative fiction and falls under our policy (web only publications are not always eligible; paper and ebooks are), we want it. If you had not read it yet, the Scope and the ROA specifically need to be read. Especially when you are coming from a different project. ;) Annie 16:11, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Got it, thank you! Sylvar 17:24, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Talking about language scope (well, the note on the dictionary made me think about it anyway), this should give you some idea on our languages coverage :) Not very visible unless you are looking for it or stumble on something like this (and you had not set your account not to show you translations). Some of them are just "original language" but technically... we want them all. We just do not exactly have the bandwidth to get it all NOW so... it is work in progress. Hope you are having fun in the DB :) Annie 18:06, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

I am! Sylvar 18:19, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

The Omega Files: Short Stories

About this one:

• How can a 198x129 mm paperback be "unknown format"? :)
• "Oxford Bookworms Library" is a publisher series, not a title series. If this gets translated and/or published by another publisher, it will not be under that series. And we have the Pub series already. Always a good thing to check.
• Links for a specific edition go into the publication web URLs, not the title ones.
• The Web archive version is a 4th printing of the 2002 edition. The link from OUP is the 3rd edition (which is undated). Are you sure they are the same publication? If they are not, you cannot have them on the same book. We record every printing and edition separately, we do not add all links to all editions to the same publication.
• Are you sure these are actually speculative and not adventure/spy stories?

I will approve and fix these after I get the answers here. But please be more careful when adding books. :) Annie 14:21, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Oh, for heaven's sake, I was very wrong on a lot of this stuff. Most importantly, even though the characters were discussing extraterrestrials and "little green men", that was not in fact the way the plot turned out. I have canceled my submission and I apologize for taking so much of your time. I'll make a note to only submit things after a thorough review and at least one good night's sleep. Sylvar 15:27, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Not a problem at all :) It sounded iffy - I would usually approve, fix and come with the laundry list of fixes but it did not feel like SF (it is a bit too new for me to have used it when I was studying English but I know the series pretty well and they are not big on speculative fiction - even though they have a few although usually in the higher levels). Annie 15:40, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Боже мой! This isn't even your first language? I'm illiterate in yours, even with a BA in linguistics. Now I understand what you meant about double negatives, because nobody speaking English не uses them like y'all do! Thank you again! Sylvar 15:57, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Chronologically, English is my third - mandatory Russian in school started at grade 3 (although I was in the last class to get enough Russian; the class after me got it just for a year). Now... usage-wise, it is my second these days - my passive Russian is still good (and I read in/listen to Russian with no issues) but my active one is all but gone due to disuse; the rest of my languages are in various levels of "kinda sorta" knowledge (mostly in the A2/low B1 spectrum except for German where I can claim B1/low B2 if I want to be generous, especially on the passive side - used to be a lot stronger but disuse does not help languages). If you ever need assistance with any Central or Eastern European languages titles/records, feel free to ping me - I can find my way around sources in most of them and can find data via Russian or via another one of them often. We also have this to assist people looking for help. Or post in CS :) Annie 17:40, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Quite a lot of the project contributors active at the moment are not native English speakers, some of them have very limited English - so sometimes we may turn a phrase in a weird way. And yes - in a lot of languages, you have a double negative (or even triple negative) which are translated as a single negative in English (English is actually the outlier in this in the language I know anything about) :) Annie 17:40, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Heh! Thanks :) Sylvar 17:42, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Serials

On a separate note - now that you are adding the serials, just a reminder that after they are approved, they need to be varianted. See this for the explanation. Annie 18:26, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

OK, I think I've done that. Sylvar 18:39, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Approved. And now you need to variant the rest of the pieces to the newly created title. And then we need to talk about the parent date. Serials are... fun. The governing rules are here - see the Serializations part. :) Annie 18:47, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

OK, I should be able to get that done next week. (My employer, bless them, allows me to do SF research on the clock when I can.) Sylvar 18:49, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

Ha. Nice! By next week, someone would probably fix them :) We have cleanup report for these although it is overloaded so who knows. So think of this as a "just so you know for next time" in case someone does fix these :) Annie 18:58, 8 October 2021 (EDT)

ASCII Through the Logic Gate

HI! I approved this variant submission[1] but its made your serial a variant of a serial which is wrong, my mistake.. Do the 33 part makeup a novel or a short story? I'll have to change it to one or the other. The same applies to the other stories. Thanks.Kraang 12:32, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Ooo, good question. The author's website has PDFs of the serial parts which describe it as "An epic in 32K words", so taking him at his word (no pun intended), I suppose it's a novella. I should probably go back and count the words in the other two serialized tales, too. Sylvar 12:40, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

The Hexadecimal Kid was about 14k words (novelette) in 17 installments, so I think Son of Hex Kid (which seems to have installments of roughly the same length) is probably also a novelette. ASCII Through the Logic Gate should be a novella, though. Sylvar 12:51, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Than shortstories it is, just novella or novelette. Thanks!Kraang 13:01, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Of course! Thanks. Sylvar 13:11, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Mind Candy

Oops. I accidentally munged the title of the essay "Firefly: The Heirs of Sawney Beane". If you would be so kind as to approve the submission as-is, I will submit a correction to that title. Sylvar 17:21, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Kraang beat me to approving it but a few things:

• Introductions and other "commonly named" essays ALWAYS get the name of the book in brackets as part of their name
• When you know the order of something but do not know the exact pages, used piped numbers. See how I did it here.

I also fixed the essay while I was there :) Annie 17:41, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Wonderful! Thank you so much for the tips, and for fixing my mistake. Should I submit a correction to make it "Introduction [Mind Candy]" in brackets, or is it better to leave it as "Introduction (Mind Candy)" in parentheses? Sylvar 17:47, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Yeah, yeah, yeah... :) Parentheses are the correct type of brackets for that... We use the square brackets only for interior art that needs numbering. The name of the book and the (map) when used as designation are in parentheses :) Annie 17:50, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Sorry, I wasn't trying to be a wiseass, I hadn't been thinking of parentheses as a subset of brackets. Thank you very much! Sylvar 17:51, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

:) Same word for all of them ([], (), {} and <>), just a different modifier, in Bulgarian so I occasionally forget to use the correct word. My bad - this one catches me more often than I want to admit. That's why I tend to do and show and explain at the same time - so people can see what I do exactly. Annie 18:01, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Makes sense! Sylvar 18:02, 11 October 2021 (EDT)

Love in an Undead Age

A few small things on this one:

• Goodreads numbers go into the Goodreads External ID in the publication record and not on the title record (as they are IDs for specific editions)
• Excerpts do not have lengths so if something is an excertp, we do not mark it as short story - just leave the length blank
• Any piece of data that did not come from the physical copy when verifying needs to be added to the notes. I added your note about the pub date in there.

The result is here. Still having fun? :) Annie 03:49, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

Thank you! Sylvar 19:03, 20 October 2021 (EDT)

Algol #12

I just know I'm gonna get a note about this one because there was so much information to enter. What will I learn about ISFDB today? Sylvar 13:02, 15 November 2021 (EST)

As you asked politely: here it is :).

• Small change in the name: you want a comma between the title and the issue number. That way the grid can be formed properly.
• Letter is a common name and so on - see the thread below. I fixed all of them
• Page numbers - do you want to fix these the way I explained below?
• Questions:

• Is "Beatle-Juice: Editorial" - the title as printed or did you add Editorial? (It is too faded for me to read on my current screen, I can look tomorrow as well but as you are here...)
• Where is the date coming from? Is it printed in the fanzine? Annie 00:40, 17 November 2021 (EST)
• This becomes an yearly title. Does this note belong to it or the series or to the specific issue?

Any questions and so on, you know the drill. :) Annie 00:40, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Thanks!

• I've fixed the page numbers, thank you!

• Lupoff reviewed The Second Jungle Book, The Phantom Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories, and Wee Willie Winkie together ("These three books of short stories by Kipling all date from fairly early in his career, and share the common background of British India..."), but I've listed them in the order he mentions the titles at the head of the review.

• Yes, "Beatle-Juice: Editorial" is the title as printed on page 5.
• The date is coming from the publishing statement at the bottom of page 3: "[...] This is Doompublication #250, dated March 18th, 1967. Steve Stiles for TAFF!!!"
• Oops! I've moved the Ellish statement to the issue.

Sylvar 10:07, 17 November 2021 (EST)

The triple review: If there is a part of that essay that is common for all 3, you can even add an essay on top of it for the main article, then the 3 reviews one by one so they connect. Ah, now I see the date :) Annie 14:21, 17 November 2021 (EST)

That seems excessive to me; it's a fairly brief review of the three of them. Unless style requires it, I think it would be better not to. Sylvar 14:46, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Requires? No. But it is the usual practice with essays that incorporate reviews and parts that are not reviews. So I am just bringing it up. Up to you if you want to do that. Annie 14:47, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Thank you. I'm not sure how to visualize the structure you're talking about; could you show me an example? Sylvar 14:53, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Here: See the Reference Library essay on page 141 and then the Reviews under it? The essay is essentially the big article that contains all the reviews :) Common way to deal with articles with multiple reviews. May be an overkill here indeed but keep that in mind if you stumble over more of these. Annie 15:01, 17 November 2021 (EST)

But how do those reviews get indented beneath the essay? Sylvar 15:37, 17 November 2021 (EST)

The system does that automatically - all reviews are always indented that way - look at Algol and how the reviews look indented ;) When they are under an essay it looks as if you did it on purpose but it is just how the UI looks. Annie 15:38, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Oh! I get it now, thank you! Sylvar 15:52, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Horizons, April 1940

A few things about this one:

• Letter is a common title. So it gets disambiguated with the issue name
• When you have more than one thing on the same page, order it with pipes. See how I did the ones on page 14: 14|14.1, 14|14.2 and so on.

The result is here. As usual - if you have any questions, please let me know. Annie 00:34, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Gotcha, thank you! Sylvar 10:07, 17 November 2021 (EST)

Converting novels to chapbooks

I had to reject this one. The conversion requires 2 steps indeed but you cannot submit the second one before the first one is approved. The old novel becomes a story. Then you need to ADD a chapbook - not convert the novel to one (or the series stays on the chapbook level and it does not belong there). The site won't allow you to do that until the story is actually converted. :) I finished the conversion here but let me know if you have any questions. Annie 12:56, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Ah, thanks! I was getting pretty confused. At least now they'll merge. Sylvar 14:39, 26 January 2022 (EST)

Title Edits

If you edit the title record (like you did here), you don't then need to edit the publication (like you did here). Those are two different ways of changing the same record. Only one of those was needed. Thanks. -- JLaTondre (talk) 10:08, 9 April 2022 (EDT)